What drives knowledge sharing
behavior of individuals?
Dana Minbaeva
Associate Professor in Strategic HRM
Center of Strategic Management and Globalization
Copenhagen Business School
Denmark
My research
All papers are available upon the request
Knowledge transfer and HRM
Minbaeva and
Michailova (2004) in
Employee Relations
Knowledge characteristics
Knowledge
Minbaeva et al (2003) in
JIBS
Absorptive capacity
Disseminative capacity
Sender
Minbaeva (2008) in
Management
International Review
Receiver
Barren organizational context
Organizational environment
Minbaeva (2005) in
Personnel Review
Governance of knowledge processes
Firm:
governance
mechanisms
Individual:
conditions of
individual actions
Firm:
knowledge
processes’ outcomes
Individual:
individual knowledge
sharing behavior
•Gooderham, Minbaeva and Pedersen (2010), in Journal of Mgt Studies
•Minbaeva and Pedersen (2010), in IJSCM
•Michailova and Minbaeva (2011), forthcoming in International Business Review
•Foss, Minbaeva, Pedersen and Reinholt (2009) in Human Resource Management
•Minbaeva, Foss and Snell (2009), Special Issue of Human Resource Management
•Minbaeva (2008) in International Business Review
•Minbaeva, Makela and Rabbiosi (2009), SMG Working Paper and under review
(S)HRM in MNCs
 Navrbjerg and Minbaeva (2009) in International Journal of
Human Resource Management
 Minbaeva, Hutching and Thomson (2007) in European Journal
of International Management
 Minbaeva and Muratbekova-Touron (2010) in International
Journal of Human Resource Management
“Employment Practices of Multinationals in Organizational Context”,
international project, www.cbs.dk/mnc
What drives knowledge sharing
behavior of individuals?
Dana Minbaeva and Torben Pedersen
Center of Strategic Management and Globalization
Copenhagen Business School
Rationale
 Whether knowledge sharing takes place in an
organization depends to a great extent on individual
organizational members’ decision to share or not the
knowledge they possess.
 in any model of knowledge sharing the knowledge
sharing behavior of individuals has to be explained
endogenously and on individual level
 “… there are not so many studies which managed to do so
empirically”
Why not? (1)
 The theories in which the discussion of intra-organizational
knowledge sharing is nested are usually collective ones (Felin and
Hesterly, 2007).
 Knowledge-based scholars should “carefully revisit their
underlying philosophical and theoretical assumptions about the
primacy given to collectives and to consider potential individuallevel explanations as antecedents to new value creation” (Felin and
Hesterly, 2007: 214).
 Hence to push further the empirical research on knowledge
sharing, we need to integrate some individual-level theories –
those considering individuals and their actions as the basic units of
analysis (Elstner, 1989).
 Motivation theory
Why not? (2)
 To empirically study knowledge sharing at the individual
level, we need individual level data collected at various
locations, organizational units, hierarchical levels, etc.
 That is necessary since individuals are randomly distributed
within the organization.
 Further, the data should be collected from various social
groups (gender, age, level of education) since individuals are
a priori heterogeneous.
Why not? (3)
 Just understanding of the conditions of individual action does
not mean a lot for managers.
 Hence, we need to consider managerial interventions
(governance mechanisms in Foss, 2007) which managers
could employ to appeal to the conditions of individual actions
and thereby facilitate individual knowledge sharing behavior.
In response …
 The theory of planned behavior (TPB)
 The TPB is an extension of the Theory of Reasoned Action
(TRA) introduced by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975)
 Aim: to explain behavior of individuals endogenously as
determined by its predictors (intentions, attitude, subjective
norms and perceived control)
The motivation sequence
The TPB in a nutshell
Source: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~aizen/
Why the TPB?
 The TPB was extensively used to study human behavior
and design appropriate behavioral interventions to
change behavior by affecting one or more of its
determinants
Knowledge governance mechanisms
 KGA in Foss (2007): governance mechanisms are deployed in the belief that
influencing the conditions of individual actions in a certain manner will
lead employees to take those decisions that when aggregated lead to
favorable organizational outcomes (knowledge acquisition and
utilization).
 Represents a reaction to what it regards as the "methodological collectivism" of
explanations of knowledge processes currently dominating the KBV research
(Foss, 2007)
 Understanding of relations between governance mechanisms and knowledge
processes implies theorizing individuals (Grant, 1996), individual heterogeneity
(Felin and Hesterly, 2007), and individual interaction (Felin and Foss, 2005).
• Intra-organizational knowledge processes can be influenced and directed
through the deployment of governance mechanisms (Foss, 2007)
• Knowledge governance mechanisms → conditions of individual actions →
individual actions → (when aggregated) favorable organizational outcomes,
such as knowledge transfer.
 E.g. theoretically: Foss and Michailova (2009) and empirically Gooderham, Minbaeva and Pedersen(2010)
Knowledge governance mechanisms
 We propose a number of knowledge governance
mechanisms that can be applied to influence the
previously identified antecedents of behavioral
intentions (attitude, subjective norm and perceived
control) and thereby affect knowledge sharing
behavior of individuals.
Knowledge governance mechanisms
 Ajzen (1991): “it is at the level of beliefs that we can
learn about the unique factors that induce one person to
engage in the behavior of interest” (p. 206-207).
Knowledge governance mechanisms
 three types of governance mechanisms influencing
behavioral, normative and control beliefs and label them
accordingly as
 extrinsic rewards (behavioral beliefs)
 reciprocal schemes ( normative beliefs) and
 communication mechanisms (control beliefs).
Conceptual model
H5
Rewards
Attitude
H2
Reciprocity
schemes
H6
Subjective
norm
H3
Intention to
share
H4
Communication
mechanisms
H7
Perceived
control
H1
Knowledge
sharing
behavior
Hypotheses
 H1. Strong intention to engage in knowledge sharing behavior positively influences the extent

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


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of knowledge sharing behavior.
H2. A positive attitude toward knowledge sharing positively influences the individual’s
intention to share knowledge.
H3. Strong subjective norms about knowledge sharing positively influence the individual’s
intention to share knowledge.
H4. Perceived behavioral control positively influences the individual’s intention to share
knowledge
H5. The more individuals are externally rewarded for knowledge sharing, the more positive
their attitude toward knowledge sharing is.
H6. The more individuals are reciprocally rewarded for knowledge sharing, the more positive
their subjective norm regarding knowledge sharing is.
H7. The more individuals use communication mechanisms, the stronger their perceived
behavioral control is.
Data
 Danisco and Chr. Hansen
 MANDI Questionnaire on Knowledge Sharing
 Response rate
 Danisco: 77.94%; 219 respondents
 Chr. Hansen: 72.75%; 251 respondents
Respondents
 After consultation with
each company’s
representative, the
distribution of the
survey responses was
regarded as
representative.
Measures
 We used perceptual
measures for
operationalization of
all variables in this
study
Results
2[127] = 311.5
GFI = 0.93
RMSEA= 0.05
Goodness-of-fit statistics for three
competing specification of the model
Results: antecedents
 The decision “not-to-share” is individual, often rational and
well justified from the perspective of the individual
 The intention to share knowledge is formed as a combination
of the social influence (social norms), an individual’s
confidence in her ability to perform the knowledge sharing
(perceived control), and the individual’s own attitude toward
sharing of knowledge (attitude).
Results: governance mechanisms
 A positive feedback on past instances of knowledge sharing,
being acknowledged of their contribution to the work of
others and/or organizational development
 Availability and use of required resources and
opportunities to carry out and successfully complete that
behavior
Results: BUT!
 Contrary to commonly accepted practices associated with
knowledge management initiatives, a felt need for
extrinsic rewards may very well hinder the development
of favorable attitudes toward knowledge sharing
 Such a finding might simply be a reflection of the specific
extrinsic rewards applied in two organizations

Insights from Motivational Theory on the link between
extrinsic motivation and performance (e.g. Vroom)

Insights from Creativity Theory(e.g. Amabile)

Rewards and knowledge sharing (e.g. Bock et al, 2005;
Minbaeva, Makela and Rabbiosi, 2010)
Performance
Rewards
Limitations
 Our limitations …
 Future studies …
 cross-sectional data
 longitudinal research
 two MNCs from Denmark
 a wider variety of firms
 the impact of the external
environment (formal and
informal institutions)
 using perceptual instruments
 more elaborate measures,
combining perceptual ones with
some objective indicators
Implications
 The use of external rewards seems surprisingly enough to be
counterproductive in creating a positive attitude toward
knowledge sharing.
 The interactions of governance mechanisms complementarity effect (which could be negative, neutral or
positive)
To conclude
We need to push HRM scholars out of their
“natural comfort zone” (Becker and Huselid, 2006: 900)
which assumes the aggregation of individuals, existence of an
“average individual” and no differences in individual perception
of external stimulus and reaction to that.